Before Sony Computer Entertainment America began its online effort last summer, PS2 fans of multiplayer games could entertain themselves with what used to be quite standard fare: A two-player versus mode. Maybe, if a dev team's coders were animal-masochists they'd add in the four-player deathmatch mode using the Multi-tap, but anyone interested in multi-player goodness was generally out of luck. And frankly, one-on-one deathmatch isn't all that fun. So? Gamers either had to trod back to the dying arcades or buck up and upgrade their heaving old PCs.

In the last few years publishers and developers alike have learned that Cooperative modes are quite popular. In response, they've slowly begun to add co-op modes into their games. The co-op game, an idea surely originated in the arcades back in the '80s with games like Ikari Warriors, Contra and Gauntlet, are an excellent alternative to the dull one-on-one deathmatch, and for those who don't have a Multi-tap, or who can't find one, can team up with their buddies in these excellent co-op additions.

The PlayStation 2 isn't teeming with co-op games, but there are dozens of them, really good games in fact, waiting you and your friends to get to grips with. For the purposes of this article, we have singled out the list of co-op games that genuinely enable players to plat co-operatively with another. We're not focusing on four-player deathmatch games or online games per say, but games that provide two or more players to team up and play.

Special Co-op Modes Special Co-op mode games feature co-op gameplay, but in a different way. Instead of enabling another players to join in on the full game proper, players get to take part in a special mode or set of modes, created especially for the game. These consist of three-level modes, or remix modes, or might even require entirely different skills.

In the most classic way to stretch the life of the game's potential, Activision and K2 ditched the create-a-level mode from the past game and added a versus and co-op mode. The Versus is great fun, especially when players open up all of the extra characters, and the Co-op is just as keen, but it requires that players genuinely play together to sneak through a handful of missions and levels. True co-op play if we've ever seen it.

Gearbox's excellent port, or re-creation, of Valve's infamous first-person shooter not only looks better on PS2, it offers three modes, Story, Head-to-Head and Decay, which is the co-op mode. Decay takes place during Gordon's adventure in Half-Life, and enables players to select an AI bot with which they can switch back and forth during the game (in full screen), or with another human character (via split-screen). It's good fun for Half-Life maniacs but it requires a certain level of coordination that requires much yelling and cursing at one another -- all part of the social interaction that makes co-op games so lovely.